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Such a theory as syndicalism, declares Sombart, "could only have grown up in a country possessing so high a culture as France; that it could have been thought out only by minds of the nicest perception, by people who have become quite blasé, whose feelings require a very strong stimulus before they can be stirred; people who have something of the artistic temperament, and, consequently, look disdainfully on what has been called 'Philistinism' on business, on middle-class ideals, and so forth.
His counsel was for open war. Taking that terrible modern weapon, the pen, in his hand, he passed the remainder of his life in one fierce battle. What was that battle? the reader will ask. It was a life and death battle with Philistinism. Philistinism! we have not the expression in English. Perhaps we have not the word because we have so much of the thing.
It must, however, be admitted that the provocation thereto was of an unusual character. A company of Philistines were feasting together, in celebration of the memory of a genuine anti-Philistine one who, moreover, had been, in the strictest sense of the words, wrecked by Philistinism.
These confectioners seem to give the distinction of art to the natural thoughts and feelings of cultivated people. Culture is far more dangerous than Philistinism because it is more intelligent and more pliant. It has a specious air of being on the side of the artist. It has the charm of its acquired taste, and it can corrupt because it can speak with an authority unknown in Philistia.
And this bent always tends, as I have said, to take them out of their class, and to make their distinguishing characteristic not their Barbarianism or their Philistinism, but their humanity.
In Adelaide middle-class respectability is too strong for larrikinism, and imparts a far healthier social and moral tone than obtains in either Melbourne or Sydney; but for these advantages the little town pays the small but disagreeable price of Philistinism.
His father, in all likelihood, would now never speak of that; and, indeed, why should he? The story no longer affected either of them, and to worry oneself about it was mere "philistinism," a favourite term with Piers at that day. In replying, which he did this same night, he decided to make no mention of Daniel. The name would give his father no pleasure.
Other lectures in connection with the instruction of the resident professors marked an epoch, and did much to remove anything like Philistinism from the student body. Bayard Taylor's lectures in German literature thus supplemented admirably the excellent work of the resident professors Hewett and Horatio White.
From this point of view it is easy to see how dull and stupid are the philosophasters who in pompous phrases represent that the State is the supreme end and flower of human existence. Such a view is the apotheosis of Philistinism.
But we had come too late in the painting-season for any other than Hobson's choice: the tidbits of grime and squalor were all taken, and we must e'en content ourselves to be mocked and reviled for the philistinism of our domestic establishing, or else hie us hence where artists were not and Ethel Cottages as yet unknown. But where, tell me where, are not artists in England?
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